Mini-Syllabus: The European Catastrophe

This course will examine how European civilization wrecked itself in the wars of the 20th century and left in its wake a world transformed into what may at times appear to be packs of maddened animals fighting over the scraps. The reading materials will focus on the chronological process of bloody collapse, with various perspectives ranging from those of world leaders to those of average people who frequently did not survive the catastrophe. The reading list is prodigious (select films are also included, and will be screened during class sessions). It is unlikely that students will have much, if any, free time for diversions during the semester. In the wake of such sustained and intensive study of the organized insanity of war, students may not find themselves in the mood for levity in any case. Counseling services will be available as needed through the Campus Health Clinic.

Students will be required to keep a handwritten journal reflecting on the readings, the class and their classmates, the larger world of current events (both in their own lives and in the greater societal context), and anything else they care to write in the little time available. These journals will be due on the last day of class. Failure to turn in a journal will earn the student a failing grade for the class. Students will also be required to lose a minimum of ten percent of their body weight during the semester. The Campus Health Clinic will provide the scales and the logs for tracking weight. There will be no final.

Required Readings

Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower

Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August

Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

Max Hastings, Winston’s War

Richard Rhodes, Masters of Death

John Bierman and Colin Smith, The Battle of Alamein

Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Max Hastings, Armageddon

Barbara Tuchman, Stillwell and the American Experience in China

David Halberstam, The Coldest Winter

Michael Oren, Six Days of War

David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest

Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried

Atticus Lish, Preparation for the Next Life

Recommended Additional Readings

Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier

John Keegan, The First World War

Hugh Gibson, A Journal from Our Legation in Belgium

John S. D. Eisenhower, Yanks

Wilfred Owen, Poems

Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vols. I and II

Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

Art Spigelman, Maus

Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn

Rick Atkinson, The Day of Battle

Rick Atkinson, Guns at Last Light

Charles MacDonald, Company Commander

Antony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin 1945

Max Hastings, Retribution

Muriel Spark, The Girls of Slender Means

William Gass, The Tunnel

Donald Knox, The Korean War: Pusan to Chosin: An Oral History

James Salter, The Hunters

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, Parts I and II

Films

Rome, Open City, dir. Roberto Rossellini

A Walk in the Sun, dir. Lewis Milestone

From Here to Eternity, dir. Fred Zinnemann

When Trumpets Fade, dir. John Irvin

Die Brücke, dir. Bernhard Wicki

The Third Man, dir. Carol Reed

Go Tell the Spartans, dir. Ted Post

Restrepo, dir. Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington

Recommended Additional Films

Tetman Callis is a litigation paralegal in Chicago. His short fictions have been published in various magazines, including NOON, New York Tyrant, Litro, Gravel, alice blue review, Identity Theory, Wigleaf, Salt Hill, and White Whale Review. He is the author of the memoir, High Street: Lawyers, Guns & Money in a Stoner’s New Mexico (Outpost19, 2012), and the children’s book, Franny & Toby (Silky Oak Press, 2015).

Mini-Syllabus: The European Catastrophe was last modified: October 29th, 2016 by Guest Contributor